Holmes and Watson End Peace: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes (8 page)

Interlude

“Is the tea ready, Nurse?”

“Yes, Matron.”

“Good, I am parched. Where is Nurse Pollett?”

“Gone to check on Dr Watson. She wanted to give him some company for a while.”

“And what about her other duties, how does she intend to fit them in?”

“Don't be too hard on her, Matron. She has a good heart and she cares; isn't that what nursing is all about?”

“It would not be like me to say it to her face, but she is a good nurse, frivolous at times, but I am aware that beneath it all she is very committed.”

“Sorry to speak out of turn, but what is stopping you from telling her just that?”

“She has a long way to go and still needs discipline above praise. I have seen nurses whose careers have faltered because of too much praise. They become over confident and sloppy, thinking they have made the grade.”

“But we all need encouragement, Matron.”

“And I give it when it is due do I not?”

“I suppose so.”

“No suppose about it, my girl. Let's treat ourselves to a biscuit shall we, Nurse Harrison?”

“What about Lucy's tea and biscuit?”

“She knows where to find us.”

“I could take her tea to her; she can have it as she sits with Dr Watson.”

“I will finish mine and take it to her myself.”

“Really, Matron?”

“Yes, really, Nurse.”

Chapter 9

“Watson?... Watson?”

“I was dreaming. I was floating along a river and clutching at roots on the river bank, but try as I might I could not grab hold of anything, my fingers refused to grasp any of these lifelines and the current was carrying me gently, almost peacefully along.”

“Gently upon a sea of words.”

“What's that, Holmes?”

“I was letting your poetic tendencies sway my thoughts. All those years of reading your accounts must have borne fruit at last!”

“The ‘poetry' as you term it was necessary and not as superfluous as you would have it.”

“Be that as it may, Watson. There is one thing that has always puzzled me however.”

“Something about me?”

“Yes, my friend. I have often wondered why you never ventured into other areas of writing, why you never authored any other tales. After all, your invention was always of a high level and there was, I have to admit, some degree of excitement in your chronicles of our exploits.”

“I was more than aware of my own shortcomings as a writer. It pains me even now to think of the inconsistencies that appear in my chronicles of your cases. I must have left my readers in a very confused state.”

“Yet, as you have said, some of these inconsistencies were forced on you for reasons of privacy and diplomacy. Dates, names and places, I fully acknowledge had to be changed, but I do not see that as reflecting on your literary worth.”

“No, Holmes, I always knew my limitations and truth be told I enjoyed the chronicling of our adventures so much that any other avenues of writing would never have measured up in my estimation. I would never have experienced the same pleasure.”

“Perhaps you could have branched out into fields that you specialised in?”

“Such as?”

“'The Gamblers Guide to Turf Accounting' perhaps?”

“Very droll. I would hardly describe it as a specialism of mine, Holmes.”

“No, Watson? Do you think not? The chequebook of yours I kept locked in a drawer testifies differently as does the little matter of half your wound pension finding its way into bookmaker's pockets!”

“It was a particular weakness of mine at a stressful time in my life, that was all. In time I weaned myself off it with the occasional relapse. You were not exactly a stranger to addiction yourself.”

“Very true, and I was exceedingly grateful for all your help in steering me away from that course.”

“I saw the dangers to your health, both physical and mental and as both your friend and physician I could hardly stand idly by and watch you destroy your talents through the use of that pernicious drug. Did you ever complete your own book, ‘The Whole Art of Detection'? I seem to recall you saying that you laid it aside a few years ago.”

“Yes, you recall correctly. I laid it aside for good. The new methods for detecting crime were moving on apace at the turn of the century and I felt my tome would be of no earthly use to anyone. Mechanised processes used more and more in industry and even the humbler workplaces would leave no marks of people's occupations upon their hands or clothing. The world even then was becoming more uniform by the minute and the last nigh on thirty years has done nothing to halt this progress of de-humanisation. My methods, like myself I fear, had become stale and of no use to the modern breed of detective. The work of Bertillon and Galton has been taken on tenfold by police forces around the world. Time does not stand still, my friend, not even for us. New advances will mean better equipped police, better trained, for whom detection will be made simpler without the need for magnifying glasses and shag tobacco.”

“Surely, great brains will always be needed and why cannot the gifted amateur still have his day?”

“They will neither be required nor consulted, Watson. He is more likely I fear to be arrested for obstruction than listened to or heeded.”

“'The Whole Art of Detection' could have been an important document, an account of your life with the emphasis where it should be; with your deductive skills to the fore instead of the sensationalist element I sometimes let slip into the stories of your doings.”

“Sometimes? I am not convinced anyone would want to read such a dry document, all in all, the general populace seem happy to know me through your chronicles and do you know, I am more than happy with that.”

“I am surprised to hear you say it, Holmes. Could it be you have mellowed?”

“Quite possibly, my friend, quite possibly.”

“At least you entered the published world through your monographs.”

“Ah yes, my monographs. Dry as dust and no doubt just as un-readable. I don't believe I ever encountered anyone who had ever read the blessed things excepting your good self of course. You did read them, did you not?”

“Well, I certainly looked through them, I would hesitate to call it reading, but I believe I caught the gist of all the salient points you made.”

“You never seemed to have any trouble reading your sea-faring tales ad infinitum.”

“They were full-blooded and exciting, Holmes, whereas your monographs were-”

“Yes, Watson?”

“-as dry as dust.”

“Touché, Watson, or perhaps I should say more rightly; Et tu Watson! And all this from a discussion of your perceived limitations as a writer!”

“Every man has his limitations in all walks of life, perhaps they serve to cure us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.”

“I can see no harm in self-satisfaction, indeed I see more harm in not being satisfied enough. We should all strive to attain the utmost reward for our talents.”

“But that in no way negates self-satisfaction being an ill. It surely is the self-satisfied man who will never strive and reach out for further achievement.”

“Ah, but if he reaches the pinnacle of those achievements, then he can be well and truly self-satisfied.”

“It's a question of degrees then?”

“Precisely so. You say your limitations as a writer served to cure you of the weakness of self-satisfaction?”

“Why, yes.”

“In other words, then, you were not satisfied and wanted to extend your literary skills?”

“No, I was happy not to seek to extend myself in that direction.”

“From your own mouth then, you proclaim yourself to be self-satisfied and your limitations did nothing to cure you of it. A point for me, Watson?”

“Yes, Holmes, I believe you are taking advantage of my weary state.”

“Far from it, I never did get your limits and exploring them now is of the greatest interest to me. A case in point is your account of the Enoch Drebber murder in the case you called ‘A Study in Scarlet'. They were described on the frontispiece as being a reprint from your reminiscences, but nothing else ever followed concerning your life. Why not?”

“It's simple, Holmes. I found your life to be a far more interesting one than my own. The readers wanted to know about you, not me.”

“Perhaps they may have been eager for tales of your experience of women, which extended over many nations and three separate continents, unless your prowess in those matters was somewhat overstated.”

“My natural discretion would naturally not allow me to compile such an account.”

“Good old Watson!”

“As you were so fond of saying, the fair sex was my department.”

“Your natural charm carried all before you; I was constantly bewildered by the ease with which you relaxed in women's company. I do not mean that unkindly, you had a great gift, a gift I could not share, but one I appreciated from afar. I am sure that at times it would have got you into trouble with your heart leading you into places you maybe did not want to go.”

“There is some truth in what you say. The mention of Ballarat brought an incident back to me that has haunted me all my life.”

“Involving a woman no doubt?”

“I was very young then and you might say, hot-headed.”

“A man of action even then? I was always well aware of your instinct to be doing something energetic, but even so, I have grave difficulty in seeing you as hot-headed.”

“Be assured I was. As you will recall, I was living with my cousin in Ballarat and kicking my heels before deciding whether to head home and take up the medical career I had equipped myself for or to stay put for a while and maybe strike out for one of the cities, possibly Melbourne, as it was the closest. My cousin lived with his adoptive folks in Mount Pleasant, a lively, thriving area at the height of the gold rush, but already in decline by the time of my arrival in the autumn of 1873. The house was basically a shack, but homely enough for a young man of twenty-one with the light of adventure in his eyes. The excitement of being in this strange place far out-weighed the lack of home comforts. In the neighbouring shack lived a family who kept themselves to themselves, although with persistence and patience I was able to strike up a friendship with the daughter of the house.”

“Persistence, patience and
charm
, I dare say, Watson?”

“A little maybe. Her name was Adaline and she was as sweet a girl as you could imagine with a face a man could die for. She wore her blonde hair long and loose and when the breeze caught it, it was such a sight to behold. It may be well over fifty years ago, but I would wager not a day has passed in all that time that I have not thought of her. I was not the only one to dance attention upon her; there were other suitors for the lack of another word. However, I was the one she favoured, the one she walked out with. So entranced was I that I was quite prepared to abandon my fledgling medical career and my studies to remain in Ballarat to be close to her.”

“What happened to change all that, Watson?”

“It all happened so quickly. We had made an arrangement to meet one evening for a walk. She was usually so prompt that I began to worry when the minutes ticked by and still she had not arrived. It was to be another thirty minutes before she came into view and when she appeared she was obviously in great distress, she was crying, her dress was torn and she looked abject.”

“She had perhaps been a victim of the attentions of one of these other suitors?”

“Yes, a brutish young man by the name of John Rock. He had tried to force himself on her, unsuccessfully I might add. The ferocity with which she fought back had seen him off. My blood boiled as she recounted all this to me. I comforted her as best I could and once she had composed herself she returned home with a story of stumbling on the ground to cover the damage to her dress.”

“And you, presumably, went in search of this John Rock?”

“Yes, Holmes. I had no thoughts of violence towards the fellow, I am not at all sure what I was thinking; he was a good three inches taller and wider than I and any form of fisticuffs would surely see me come off second best. However, I could not let it go.”

“Were there no officers of the law available to take the matter in hand?”

“It would have shamed Adaline for the assault to become public and in my innocence, I agreed with her. I found John Rock by the nearest deserted pit, drinking heavily from a half-empty bottle of whisky. He knew why I was there and his immediate response was to charge at me, head down like a bull. I side-stepped him and picked up a sizeable stone. When he charged again I brought it down on his skull with all the force I could muster. I could have stopped him by using less force, after all he was drunk and fairly incapable, but in that moment I wished him dead, it was a deliberate action of mine.”

“Did you in fact kill him?”

“Yes, Holmes.”

“Oh, my dear fellow, what a situation to find yourself in.”

“Do you judge me for my actions?”

“No I do not, Watson.”

“I became judge, jury and executioner in that moment of madness. I could not think straight, but when my red mist cleared, I realised what a quandary I was in and had to act quickly. I disposed of Rock's body down one of the disused shafts and removed all traces of our presence. The following day was the last day of the cricket match between Ballarat and WG Grace's XI and I took Dr Grace into my confidence and would have respected his advice whatever it would turn out to be. The upshot was that I travelled with Grace's team until we reached the coast and then I worked my passage home.”

“What of Adaline?”

“I got word to her of what had happened and why I had to leave. I knew my secret was safe in her hands. I believe the general consensus of opinion was that Rock had decided to leave town. There was no way that I could stay and remain with Adaline after my actions; however I saw those actions and indeed however she viewed them, I was a killer and my life was forever to be blighted by my actions of that night.”

“My dear fellow, I had no idea.”

“You are the first person I have told since that time. My cousin never got to know of my actions, he probably assumed I was homesick and took advantage of the presence of the touring team to move on. Much later on, when I felt able, I wrote an anonymous letter to the remaining members of the Rock family detailing where they could find their kinsman. It is not an episode I am proud of, Holmes.”

“Was doctoring some kind of penance then?”

“Not exactly, I was already geared up to the life of a medico, but maybe it made my resolve to succeed all the stronger or perhaps my whole life has been a penance. In time I pushed the whole affair into the furthest recesses of my mind, not wholly successfully I might add. Those times when you acted as judge, jury and executioner always brought it sharply back into focus. Although of course you were not an executioner in the literal sense as I had been.”

“You think not, Watson?”

“I know so. I have tortured myself over the years with what I could have done or should have done that night. Futile, pathetic thoughts for I could never undo what I actually had done. I deprived a family of their son... for what?... a drunken misguided assault, half-baked, half-hearted and ill-conceived which would never have succeeded. Adaline deserved better from me. And what did she get? A violent thuggish reaction which ruined all we had been dreaming of.”